蚤 (zǎo) · flea

Measure Word

一只蚤 zhī

Meanings

1 flea

Characters

蚤

zǎo

flea

Examples

HSK 4

夏天小狗身上长了好几只蚤。

Xiàtiān xiǎogǒu shēnshàng zhǎng le hǎojǐ zhī zǎo.

In summer the puppy got several fleas on its body.

HSK 5

跳蚤市场就像旧货大集。

Tiàozao shìchǎng jiù xiàng jiùhuò dà jí.

A flea market is like a big secondhand-goods bazaar.

Tips

usage

Almost always seen in compounds: 跳蚤 (flea - the everyday word), 跳蚤市场 (flea market). The single-character 蚤 is bookish on its own.

history

In Classical Chinese 蚤 was sometimes a phonetic loan for 早 ('early') - a usage you'll meet in texts like 史记 and 诗经. Modern Mandarin keeps the meanings strictly separate.

Components

radical

虫 chóng

insect; bug

Bottom insect radical - the indexing radical, marking 蚤 as a member of the bug family alongside 蚊 mosquito, 蝇 fly, 蚂 ant, 蟹 crab. Pictograph of a small creature with curled body. Together with the hand above it produces the picture of catching a flea by hand.

semantic

叉 chā

fork; pinch (here a clutching hand)

Top 叉 - originally a hand with fingers spread, here picturing the act of pinching a flea between fingertips. The whole character is a tiny scene: fingers above, insect below. Provides the meaning rather than the sound.